Dear editor:

 I would like to thank all of our officers for their duty. They put their lives on the line daily and nightly. 

I have always felt safer in a bad situation as soon as an officer arrived. I could not for the life of me understand why anyone would not. I was in a situation where we called for help. But as soon as an officer was there, I was in more fear than I felt before we called. I know tensions are high for our officers. I understand, but when you see and hear fear in the officer’s voice with attitude and he has a gun and you need help, you are then a prisoner of his fear. 

Understand we as civilians have rights the same as we understand and sympathize with every fear our officers have the minute they put their uniform on and kiss their families and go to work. 

You are our police, and you do not go out alone. You have millions of people who do support you. You can be the calm in a bad situation or the aggressor where tensions are fear are already high as I learned this weekend in our situation. If we show fear it’s called disorderly conduct and we are no more than a criminal. And it’s jail time for us. 

I will continue to pray for each and every officer and our military as I do daily, but I also ask for everyone to pray for them to try and be calm where tension are not always needed. Not all of us call to put our officers in harm’s way. Some do actually need help that only our officers can bring. In our situation the second officer on scene was the only officer who did everything he could do to try to calm our fears. 

Officer Luke may have inner fear but he has a calm about him that in his presence you will feel safe. I cannot say that about the first officer on scene. I myself will continue to pray this officer will find some inner peace on every call he attends. I will pray for his safety and our other officers who have to go on calls with him. I’m not saying he is a good or bad officer. I’m saying he needs prayer for peace to be a better officer. We are not all bad. There are times when we have all been in bad situations that officers are needed.

 And we should never have to be detained to be asked questions. This is a violation of our civil rights, same as our officers have rights. I would hope he would want the same for his family in our situation. I would like to thank every man and woman who are brave enough to put on this uniform of blue. Just know you have our prayers. 

Samantha Prosser, 

Norman Park